A public option by inches: Bennet and Kaine's Medicare-X

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This week Democratic Senators Michael Bennet (CO) and Tim Kaine (VA) introduced an updated version of their Medicare-X Choice Act, first introduced in 2017 and again in  2019 (summary here, bill here). The bill would introduce a strong public option into the ACA marketplace and small group markets, paying Medicare rates to providers in most markets, though up to 150% Medicare in rural markets. It would also improve subsidies at every income level on a schedule that's become the Democratic legislative default -- e.g., in the Coronavirus relief legislation. Enrollees would pay the following percentages of income for a benchmark silver plan:

Note that benchmark coverage is free at incomes up to 150% FPL (currently about $19k/year for an individual), and there is no income cap on subsidies: no one who lacks access to other insurance (e.g., an employer-sponsored plan) would pay more than 8.5% of income for benchmark silver. The 2019 version capped subsidies at 13% of income -- a measure of how far Democrats have come in adjusting their concept of affordability.

Compared to the healthcare reform plan Joe Biden introduced as a candidate in 2020, the bill has two major limitations. First, it does not offer subsidy eligibility to people who have access to other "affordable" insurance, including an offer of insurance from an employer with a premium below 9.5% of income. (The bill does fix the family glitch, offering subsidy eligibility to employees with families if the employer's family plan costs more than 9.5% of income.) It is not "Medicare for all who want it," notwithstanding presidential candidate Bennet's past claims to the contrary.  

Triage: A moderate healthcare reform proposal

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Prescript (8/7/19): it occurs to me that this rather kludgy patch to our current system boils down to a simple rule: no one pays more than 8% of income for less than 80% AV insurance.  Paid for in part by expanding the footprint of Medicare payment rates.

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I want to float here a path to healthcare system reform that starts a gear shift or two below the Medicare for America bill, which creates a strong public option that anyone can buy into at an income-adjusted price. I am mindful of David Anderson's warning that a Democratic president who goes for sweeping healthcare reform (assuming at best a narrow Senate majority and abolishment of the filibuster) will have bandwidth for little else -- and I think other imperatives, like attacking global warming, should come first.

First, a set of working assumptions (and background on current bills) that undergird where I land (skip to the subhead, where the proposal starts, if you're so inclined).

1. The U.S. healthcare system is outrageously expensive, unjust, and inefficient, distorted by two related structural flaws:

Did the Trump administration just open a back door to to a massive "Medicare" buy-in?

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The Trump administration has potentially shaken up American health insurance markets by finalizing a new rule allowing employers of all sizes to fund employees' health insurance premiums in the individual market in lieu of offering them access to an employee-sponsored group health plans. They can do this by funding Health Reimbursement Arrangements (HRAs), currently used for medical expenses excluding premiums for individual market plans, to fund individual market premiums to any level they choose -- e.g., to roughly the percentage of premiums they currently contribute to group health plans.

Many healthcare scholars and stakeholders worry that the alternative will be particularly attractive to employers with older, sicker employees, or that large employers will find ways to send sicker employees to the individual market. As a defense against that, the rule stipulates that a given employee group (sliced various ways, e.g., part-time vs. full time) can't be offered a choice between a group health plan and the individual market -- the employer must offer either/or. The rule also suggests (pdf pg 9) that the narrow provider networks prevalent in the individual market would be more attractive to healthier than to sicker populations -- and presumably, such preferences would influence the choices employers offer.

The administration forecasts that over ten years, about 11 million people will access HRAs to enroll in individual market coverage, while the number of people covered in employer-sponsored plans will drop by about 7 million (current ESI enrollment is about 150 million). The impact on the individual market would be major, but on the employer group health market, relatively modest.

But the HRA rule potentially cracks the door for a future Democratic Congress and president to vastly expand access to public insurance within the current Affordable Care Act structure. Suppose the next Congress, enabled by a Democratic president, injects into the ACA marketplace a national public option, paying Medicare rates to providers or some adjusted version of them, and requiring providers who accept Medicare to accept the public option?

Which Democratic healthcare reform bills offer the most affordable coverage to the most people?

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Drew Altman, president and CEO of the Kaiser Family Foundation, has a message for elected officials and candidates. With regard to healthcare policy

it’s the candidates who can connect their plans and messages to voters’ worries about out of pocket costs who will reach beyond the activists in their base. And the candidates aren’t speaking to that much, at least so far.   

That claim is based mainly on Kaiser polling, which finds that 48 percent of voters worry about paying their health care bills, and half of people who are sick have trouble paying their medical bills.

The extent to which various Democratic bills to improve or replace the ACA address the demand for affordability can be viewed in two dimensions. First is the degree to which they make coverage more affordable and reduce out-of-pocket costs for the ACA's original intended beneficiaries: those who lack access to other affordable insurance, mainly employer-sponsored insurance (ESI). Second is the degree to which they impact affordability for the 150-plus million current ESI enrollees (roughly 56% of the population under age 65).

The bills affect the affordability of ESI in three ways.

X-factor in Medicare X: A silver plan discount?

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The Medicare-X Choice Act of 2017, introduced by Senators Bennet (D-CO), Kaine (D-VA) and Feinstein (D-CA), offers a more incremental and modest expansion of Medicare than more recently introduced Medicare expansion* bills such as the Medicare for America Act or the Choose Medicare Act.

When the bill was introduced, the last of the ACA repeal bills had just been defeated and the ACA marketplace was perceived as more fragile than it is at present. Insurers had recorded big losses in 2016 and jacked up their rates in 2017, which proved to be a year in which they returned to profitability in the individual market. The specter of "bare counties," in which no insurer participated, had just receded. The bill accordingly takes as its starting point a proposal Obama himself had floated in a 2016 JAMA article: A public option to be offered in counties where no private insurers, or just one, had opted to participate.  By 2023, however, "Medicare-X" would be offered in all counties in the individual market, and in 2024, in the small group market as well.

Medicare-X would create a public option within the ACA exchange, offering ACA-compliant coverage at ACA metal levels. It does not directly enrich ACA subsidies or expand eligibility for them. Unlike Medicare for America, Medicare-X does not allow a subsidized buy-in for employees if their employers offer ACA-compliant insurance. Nor does it touch Medicaid or existing Medicare programs.